Nothing to Hold
by Mia Cooper
Summary: PT, KT, PK, and a smidgen of JP. Nasty. What do Tom, Harry and B'Elanna REALLY think about each other?
1. Part 1: Harry

Nothing to Hold By Mia Cooper cyanideblue@juicylime.net  
  
Summary A nasty piece of work. What do Harry, Tom and B'Elanna really think about each other? Set sometime in season 4.  
  
Pairings P/T, K/T, P/K, and a smidgen of J/P (what can I do? It's my vice)  
  
Disclaimer All Paramount, all the time.  
  
Spoilers  
  
Caretaker, Blood Fever, Day of Honor, you name it, roll up, spoilers galore.  
  
Warning  
  
Allusions to smut and slash, loads of angst, bad language.  
  
Rated [R]. ___________________________________________________________________  
  
  
  
  
  
Harry: Damage  
  
I adored him from the moment I saw him.  
  
There I was, the quintessential fresh-faced ensign, green as an Irish meadow on the eve of my first deep space mission, and that damned Ferengi was about to part me from my life savings, not to mention my self-respect. And in swept my saviour, this chiselled hero in Starfleet red; a few choice words and the Ferengi conceded defeat. And I was indebted for life.  
  
Of course, it wasn't long before I discovered my idol's feet of clay; Commander Cavit made sure of that. But by then it was too late. And Tom's defiance, his insouciance and hurt nobility, only cemented my adoration. Harry Kim, supporter of the underdog, champion of lost causes.  
  
Tom Paris, lost cause. Or so I thought. How smug I was; how self-righteous. But you knew that, Tom, didn't you?  
  
Or did you?  
  
There I go again. Doubting myself. It's become quite the habit.  
  
Sometimes I think he's manipulated me from the start. He knew what he'd be walking into from the moment Janeway made her offer. As she strode across the Auckland grass he smelt his meal ticket; he told me that, one night in Sandrine's after one too many synthales. He saw the golden ring and reached for it, as he had done all his life. He laughed, when he told me that. "Always had my eye on the main chance, Harry," he said, and grinned. That brilliant, bitter grin. Damaged, heartless, resilient Tom Paris. That's what he wanted me to see. But I saw more.  
  
I saw the real damage. I saw the tarnished golden boy, the disappointing son, the unloved lover. The man who could have done so much, been so much, if not for the roads he'd taken.  
  
Or maybe that's what he really wanted me to see.  
  
Tom Paris, paradox.  
  
At the beginning I was bursting with good intentions. Poor Tom Paris, saved from prison by the Captain's mercy. Poor Tom Paris, hated by Maquis and Starfleet alike. Poor Tom Paris, stranded on the ship of the damned, on a lifetime's voyage across an unfriendly galaxy amidst an unfriendly crew. Poor doomed, lonely, broken Tom Paris. Who needed a friend more than anyone I'd ever met.  
  
I was so naive.  
  
He has the Captain eating out of his hand. I don't know how; she's a clever woman, but then maybe he tried harder with her. I don't know how; but I suspect. That look she gets when he's around, when she thinks nobody's watching. The way she smiles indulgently at his smartass quips, his twentieth-century slang, his numerous little-boy enthusiasms. The way she's always touching him, as if to mark her property, as if to assure herself he's real. Oh, I suspect, alright. But he's too smart, and she's too cautious, for anything more than suspicion.  
  
And who'd suspect anyway, unless they were as besotted as the Captain is? Unless they were as besotted as I am.  
  
And then there's B'Elanna.  
  
And really, she's just one more reason to hate him. And to love him.  
  
Does she know, I wonder, my guilty little secret? Does she know I wanted her from the day we met in that Ocampa hospital, tired and sick and scared? That beautiful creature, hurting and imprisoned, and yet still fighting with all her dimished strength? She shamed me, that day. There we were, the model Starfleet ensign and the renegade Maquis. Me, with my well-fed self- assurance and my Starfleet survival training practically defeated, sitting on that hospital bed, obedient and waiting for whatever was to happen next. And there she was, roaring into consciousness with flailing fists, screaming pain and anger and injustice. Fighting against an unfair universe, as she had done all her life. Me, dumb and slow and flat-footed, and quicksilver B'Elanna. She saved my life, that day. Does she know I've always wanted her? How could she, when I didn't know myself?  
  
Does she know my other guilty secret?  
  
That I hate him, because he won her. That I love him, because he saved her. That I hate him, because he saved her, when I couldn't.  
  
How could I? I was charmed from the moment of conception. My parents adored me unreservedly. Adults blessed me. Children befriended me. Teachers encouraged me. Girls flirted with me. Harry Kim, genius, athlete, model citizen; everybody's darling. I never had a moment's suffering. Well, I'm making up for it now.  
  
I couldn't save her. I couldn't earn her. But Tom could.  
  
I never failed to live up to expectations, because nobody ever expected more of me than I could give. Tom failed spectacularly. Imagine. Cherished son of Admiral Paris; gifted pilot; playboy. How could he fail to fail? Number one cadet in his Academy year whose piloting error killed three classmates. Kicked out of Starfleet before his career began. Alcoholic drifter, wasting time and latinum in bars and holosuites across the quadrant. Mercenary, captured and imprisoned on his first Maquis mission.  
  
Spectacular.  
  
And B'Elanna, who grew up taunted and reviled on Kessik IV, abandoned by her father, tormented by her mother, too wild for Starfleet Academy. Two of life's misfits. They belong together. They found each other. How can I begrudge them that?  
  
I hate myself.  
  
I want her to be happy; I really do. I know she can't be happy with me. Where's the challenge? She's fire, I'm earth; I'd bury her flame. She's fire, Tom's air; he feeds that flame. She's bright, and he's free, and I'm a stolid weight around their necks.  
  
But, God, I wish things were different.  
  
It was so much simpler before Sakari. Back then, she was my friend, and so was he. They didn't like each other much. They tolerated one another for my sake; I was the glue that bound us three together. Or maybe, and more likely, I was just too stupid to see what was right in front of my eyes.  
  
Does he know, does he have any idea, that I want what's his? That I'd give anything for her to look at me the way she looks at him. That I lie awake and torture myself with wondering what might have happened if it had been me on that away mission in the caves, wondering if she'd have stamped her mark on me if he hadn't been there? That I didn't even know I felt this way until it was far too late and I'd already lost, and now I torment myself with wondering if I was ever even in the game, if there was ever a time when B'Elanna cocked her head to one side and looked at me, really looked at me, and wondered ...  
  
He knows.  
  
But does he know the rest?  
  
That sometimes when I'm lying tangled and sweaty in sheets that wrap themselves around me like a shroud and squeezing shut my eyes to kill the images of her caramel skin and her sharp white teeth and trying to not to wish her scent would perfume my bed and her low growl hum against my throat, that sometimes, dark hair turns to gold and coffee skin to cream and curves to hard male lines and I think about him, and I want him with a sick ferocity and I claw the shroud away and know I won't be sleeping any more that night.  
  
Christ, does he know that?  
  
I'm losing my mind. Day by day on this prison ship, I'm going insane. This life, this half-life, will leave nothing of the Harry Kim that was. The perfect officer who'll never be promoted (oh, and don't get me started on that), the happy-go-lucky boy consumed by hatred and self-disgust, the faithful lover in love with a woman who loves another. Oh, I know, it's divine intervention, the galaxy's colossal joke on a man who desperately needed shaking from his complacency. But there's something to be said for complacency. You don't give a damn about what you don't have.  
  
I'm losing myself.  
  
But not enough; not yet. When I've eroded myself, piece by piece, when I can no longer care, when I no longer love her or hate him or love him; then it will be enough.  
  
But not yet. 


	2. Part 2: Tom

Tom: Redemption  
  
I don't think he has any idea how much I have to thank him for.  
  
When I think of those first weeks on Voyager, I mostly remember his sweetness. Oh, I remember the rest, of course; the contempt of the Maquis, the disgust of the Starfleet crew, the Captain ... But I was used to that. I wasn't used to Harry.  
  
I don't need anyone to choose my friends for me.  
  
God. Does he know what that did to me, that simple statement? There I was, battered and bruised and prickly and untrusting and it was all my own doing, and this sweet, brave boy reached out and soothed me. Why did he do that? He had no need. Every person on this ship would have welcomed his friendship with wide-open arms, yet he reached out to me. I almost hated him for that.  
  
Because I knew what to expect from the others. The contempt and disgust, the curled lips in the mess hall, the sharp elbows in the corridor. The Captain's price for rescuing me. They were familiar to me and I knew how to deal with them. I had all my defences in place. I was defenceless against his friendship.  
  
He had no price. Oh, I looked for it, believe me. I knew all too well that no good deed is without its hidden demand. I couldn't think what he'd want from me. I had nothing he could want.  
  
I have now.  
  
But in the beginning, it was simple. I rescued him from the Ferengi; he offered his friendship. Simple.  
  
Of course, nothing's ever that simple. I didn't trust him for one minute. Nobody could be that straightforward, that trusting, that ... good. He didn't seem real, at first, and I kept looking for the real Harry Kim, the real reason this shiny-bright kid wanted to hang around with a lying ex- convict and loser like me. I thought maybe Janeway put him up to it, had a quiet word in his ear. "Be nice to him, Harry, he's my personal reclamation project," and like a good little ensign he did as she ordered. She's smarter than that, though. She knew me too well, right from the start; saw something in me I couldn't see in myself. And after a while, I realised Harry did too.  
  
I'll always be grateful for that. He was so uncomplicated, so nice, so damn determined to like me that after a while I began to wonder if maybe I wasn't so unlikeable after all. If maybe I did deserve a second chance. Second chance - who am I kidding; I've had (and fucked up) more chances than I've had hot dinners. Maybe that's why I put my doubts aside, in the end. Because I knew that out here in the arse-end of the galaxy I wouldn't be getting any more chances.  
  
And that's why I'm so pissed off with myself now. Because selfish, self- absorbed, self-obsessed Tom Paris has managed, without even trying this time, to fuck up yet another friendship.  
  
I should have seen it coming, but she bewitched me. Spellbound me with her snapping dark eyes and her lithe little body and her Klingon bad attitude. I didn't realise he loved her, but damn it, I should have.  
  
Would it have stopped me? I honestly don't know.  
  
I don't suppose it matters now, anyway; the damage is done. And in a roundabout way I have Harry to thank for B'Elanna. If he hadn't convinced me I wasn't completely worthless I'd never have had the nerve to fall for her.  
  
Yeah, it's all Harry's fault.  
  
Perhaps it's a trade-off. Life's all about trade, after all. I've always known my own value, what I have to offer, and used and abused it. Never balked at selling myself if that's what it takes; and that's always what it takes. You'd be a fool to think otherwise. And for a while I was a fool; I let myself believe there wouldn't be a trade-off for Harry's friendship.  
  
Since Sakari, since the Cataati, our friendship's gone sour. Oh, not so's anyone outside it would notice. To the casual observer, we're still the three musketeers, all for one and one for all. Except we're not, of course. The changes were subtle at first, and blame me for being so blinded by B'Elanna that I failed to notice. Blame me for not seeing as we joked in the mess hall how Harry would try to provoke B'Elanna's laugh, her growl, the delight in his eyes when she reacted, the desolation if she didn't. Blame me for my gratitude as he broke more and more arrangements - "You two lovebirds need time to be alone" - as he tried to flirt, sourly, with Jenny Delaney, as he grew loud and abrasive on Sandrine's synthehol, as our banter on the Bridge grew less easy, more strained.  
  
They called Harry naive, but I was the ignorant one. I didn't even notice that my best friend was in love with my lover.  
  
Until she began to respond.  
  
It wasn't secret or gradual. It was fierce and hot and overpowering, the way everything is with B'Elanna. It was a slap in the face. It happened in the shuttle bay.  
  
We were working on the Sacajawea, the three of us together. I was tinkering with the helm controls, Harry upgrading the sensors, B'Elanna realigning the warp coils. They were laughing and teasing, and my mind wandered, free against the comforting background of their camaraderie. I don't know how long they'd been silent before I realised, and came back to myself.  
  
Something made me cautious. I looked around slowly and saw them. Harry, half-turned from his crouch on the floor, dark eyes naked. He looked - adult. Foreign. Unknown. Dangerous. And B'Elanna, hand stretched out to take the tool he held up to her, looking down at him, a smile fading from her eyes, her mouth soft, her cheeks flushed. And I knew.  
  
He wanted her. She wanted him.  
  
Self-preservation kicked in, as it always does with me. I turned back to the console, tapped it forcefully, swore as though frustrated, sighed, turned around. They were back in their places. I could almost pretend I'd never seen what I'd seen.  
  
Almost.  
  
I've been watching them ever since, I'm ashamed to confess. Watching for signs that the latent attraction has bloomed, or died, or been acted upon. I've been watching, but I can't be sure ...  
  
And then one day he looked at me the way he'd looked at B'Elanna.  
  
Not the quite the same way, of course. For B'Elanna I think he feels only love and regret and desire. For me ... those things are there, too, but there's more to it than that. He looked at me hotly, but it was a calculated heat. As though he'd take me if I let him, and love me, and fuck me, and then break me. He looked at me as though I were his life's prize, a thing he'd come to adore and yet would destroy if he could, just to break its power over him. The way the Captain looks at me.  
  
And I understood the price of his friendship.  
  
The two of them could break me apart.  
  
They know this. It attracts them; I can feel it, because it attracts me too. It seems my days of self-destruction aren't over after all. Sometimes I can feel myself pushing them, daring them, no longer content to wait passively for the fall of the axe. Sometimes I long for it, know I deserve it, for what I've done to this sweet-natured boy. This tormented man. Sometimes I despair of it, hating the things about me that it seems I can't change.  
  
Perhaps soon I'll find the courage to expose this to the harsh light of day, diminish its power by speaking its name. Or perhaps I'll disarm it in a different way; break B'Elanna's heart, make her turn for comfort to the one man who'd lay down his life to give it. Perhaps I'll stop hiding, make a decision, bring this stalemate to a conclusion of a sort. Someday, perhaps.  
  
But not yet. 


	3. Part 3: B'Elanna

B'Elanna: Deficiency  
  
They were such opposites at first.  
  
Harry, the buttoned-up Starfleet boy scout, bursting with pride and excitement and do-gooder morals, gentle to his core, not even understanding what it could be like to hurt. And Tom, with that brave cracked facade not concealing the damage beneath, so wary and defensive, but trying so damn hard.  
  
They're not so different now.  
  
Should I blame myself completely, or let them accept some of the blame? Was I the cause or the catalyst? Does it even matter, now that I'm destroying them both, and myself?  
  
He was so simple at first. Eyes shining, he reached out to comfort me even as I struck out. I felt so stupid. What was the point of screaming and raging when it wasn't going to get me anywhere? When I was just making a fool of myself in front of those creepy Ocampans and this self-contained Starfleet officer. He was so kind and so firm, calming me down, his voice soothing as though I were a frightened, angry child in a place I didn't understand.  
  
I suppose I was.  
  
I trusted him because he saved my life, that day. Stopped me from clawing myself inside out. Gave me someone safe to rage against. Held me while I tried to self-combust. The beginnings of our friendship.  
  
And Tom. Of course, I didn't trust him for a second - not at first. Not when he'd spent his life proving himself untrustworthy. I was frightened of him, of his power. I thought of him as you think of a stingray or a panther - something wild and beautiful and fearsome, around which you should never let your guard down. But he surprised me. Saw through me from the start. He was patient and noble and gentle and on Sakari he proved his worth. And after that there didn't seem much point fighting any more, and I let him in. And I fell in love.  
  
My whole life I've kicked and scratched and fought against the need to believe that there's even one small thing I can put my trust in. Then we were snatched across the galaxy and everything I'd ever known was gone, and Chakotay and the Captain offered me their trust and Tom and Harry offered me their friendship. Oh, I fought them all, believe me; I fought them with everything I had. But they wore me down, and I lowered my defences. And now, now that what I have is slowly corroding until there's nothing left to hold on to, I'm scared I'll lose myself again, and now my old defences are gone forever.  
  
There must be something fundamental, something vital, wrong with me. I'm the anti-Midas; everything I touch turns to shit. I guess it's always been safer that way. When my father left, it destroyed me, and I've dedicated every moment since to destroying what might hurt me if I let it. I thought - I hoped - that I'd changed. I thought I'd learned how to love. And I have, but it seems I can't change that fundamental flaw in myself, after all.  
  
I didn't mean to push Harry away. I thought he was being so understanding. Tom and I were caught up in the first flush of love, and Harry was giving us the space we needed. But Harry changed. At first I thought he was feeling abandoned, so I started chasing him down, resuming our old routine, pushing him to spend more time with me, playing the good friend. How smug I was; how self-absorbed. How condescending. I thought he was still that gentle, naïve young man. I failed to realise his complexity.  
  
In those early days when we were all adjusting to our new family, carefully working two crews into one, raw from missing our homes, Harry was my haven. He said what he felt, and what he felt was . predictable. That sounds awful, but believe me, it's what saved me. I didn't realise how much I needed something safe, something solid, something real. Something I didn't have to run away from. That was Harry; always there for me, even when I didn't know I needed it. My best friend.  
  
Don't get me wrong. I'm not blind; I knew even then how attractive he was. But he didn't, so I could ignore it. And I wanted to ignore it. I wanted something real and simple and uncomplicated. I suppose that's why Tom scared me so much at first. Nothing about him seemed simple. Nothing about him even seemed real. Ironic, isn't it? I let down my guard and I started to know Tom better, and he became real to me. What I didn't realise until it was too late was that Harry had changed, and I couldn't understand him as I used to, and now I can't count on his simplicity anymore. What made him so comforting to me is gone. I'm not sure, now, who the real Harry is.  
  
I pretended it wasn't happening, of course. I pretended that Tom and I were wrapped up in the newness of us and Harry was just giving us some space, as any friend would. I pretended not to see the disappointment in his eyes when I cancelled lunch to be with Tom, when Tom cancelled their holodeck time to be with me. I pretended that everything would go back to normal soon.  
  
And then one day he looked at me and everything tilted.  
  
We were repairing the Sacajawea and he said something and I laughed and I asked him to pass me a hyperspanner and he was smiling as he turned, and he looked at me and his eyes were not smiling. He looked at me and his eyes were naked and strange and I knew what that look meant. He looked at me and he was dangerous and I didn't know him any more.  
  
And it hit me like a disruptor blast to the chest. I want him.  
  
That simple trust in him is gone now, and with it my trust in myself. I no longer trust myself with him because I'm afraid that one day, his mouth will tell me what his eyes told me that day, and I'm afraid that I'll reach out and grab his words with both hands and fling myself into whatever comes next, and when that happens, everything I have will be lost.  
  
It will kill Tom. What we have, what we've built, was as difficult for him as it was - is - for me. It takes courage to trust when you've lived like he has; like I have. It will ruin Harry, scald his gentleness, turn him into something hard and cold. It will destroy me.  
  
I love Tom. I love him with a purity and warmth I never thought I'd be capable of. I like being the person his love has helped me become. I don't want to be the hurt, mistrusting, prickly outsider I used to be. I need what I have, here and now. I need to be part of this crew. I need everything to be as it was before Harry looked at me.  
  
I almost hate him for that, for changing, for turning my world upside down. How dare he? Doesn't he know that I need to believe in him? I feel betrayed. And yet . I can't blame him for that. I can't blame him for becoming mercurial, incomprehensible, magnetic, adult. I can't blame Tom for casting off his fears, his doubts, his past, and having the courage to become something more. I can't even blame the universe for stranding me here, for giving me so much and then threatening to snatch it all away. But I can blame myself.  
  
Because after all this time, no matter how much I've changed, there's some dark impulse in me, some deficiency, which impels me to destroy it all. Some days I lash out at Tom, try to drive him away, try to provoke him into hating me. Some days I snarl at Harry, trying to erode his patience, trying to cut through his stoicism. Some days I almost - almost - have the courage to face it head on, but then my courage fails me and I bite my tongue.  
  
Some day I'll have the strength to end this, one way or another. Perhaps I'll just leave the ship, disappear on some away mission, let them think I've died and mourn me for the person they thought I was. Perhaps I'll let it come to its natural conclusion, let Harry desire me and Tom grow to hate me, let the growing space between us fill with poison, let it all erode away until there's nothing safe, nothing real, nothing to hold anymore. Perhaps tomorrow, or the next day, I'll gather my waning honour and confront it head on, give that twisting knife a clean sharp pull and expose our wounds to open air and let them heal. Perhaps one day, but not yet.  
  
But not yet. 


End file.
